Forgestoker Dragon

The activated ability is what separates this from the long line of vanilla red flyers in its weight class: a repeatable pinger that does double duty, picking off X/1 blockers and clearing a path through anything bigger by forcing it out of the combat entirely. The "can't block this combat" rider matters more than the single point of damage, because it turns a 5/4 evasive body into a creature that decides on its own whether the ground stalls or breaks open. The gating is where the design discipline lives: the ability fires only while this creature is attacking, so there is no defensive utility, no end-step value, no chipping at the opponent's board on their turn. It is an aggressor's button, available exactly when you have already committed to the swing, and the mana sink rewards a long game in which you have more red to spend than threats to deploy. That attack-only clause also stacks: with enough mana, a single combat can both ping multiple X/1s off the board and wave away a key blocker, so the ceiling scales with an open red mana base rather than with the card itself. A six-mana flyer that pays for itself by manufacturing its own openings, built for the deck that wants its top end to keep applying pressure rather than trade.